CFA-CSU Reach Tentative Agreement

The California Faculty Association held a teleconference Tuesday
to announce that it had reached a tentative contract agreement with
the California State University System after 23 months of labor
negotiations.

Three days before the end of the 10-day negotiation extension
and 7 days before the initial sweep of labor actions were to begin,
the much talked about rolling walkouts were put on hold in light of
a deal made between the parties in principle on the contract.

“We have a tentative agreement that will be good for the CSU,
good for our students, good for faculty,” said CFA President John
Travis in a news release. “Through this agreement faculty will make
real progress toward closing the pay gap between us and our
colleagues in other states.”

The tentative agreements reach compromise on the issues of
salary, workload, grievances, parking and appointments. The CFA
describes this as the most contentiously debated topics in the
bargaining process.

The tentative agreement gives every faculty member a 7.7 percent
raise over the next four months and a 20.7 percent General Salary
Increase over the lifetime of the contract. The Chancellor’s office
only guaranteed 14.87 percent in their offer.

“It is a settlement of which we can be proud,” said the CFA in
their agreement perspective summary. “The deal certainly doesn’t
represent everything the faculty deserves and there will always be
work to be done, but it is a settlement we have earned through our
unity and our hard work.”

CSU administrators are equally pleased to have come to a
deal.

“CSU employees including our faculty are the University’s
greatest asset,” said Chancellor Charles B. Reed in the press
release. “This agreement strikes a realistic balance between
providing deserved raises to our faculty and our limited financial
resources. The recommendations of the neutral fact finder provided
a roadmap to settle both economic and non-economic issues.”

CSU Board of Trustees Chair Roberta Achtenberg said, “We are
pleased that we were able to come to an agreement with our faculty
union. This is good news for everybody, including 417 students, and
we look forward to moving ahead with getting our faculty their
salary increases.”

The tentative agreement will be sent to dues paying members of
the CFA to put to a vote to ratify and if ratified it will then be
submitted to the CSU Board of Trustees for approval.

Faculty still remain prepared, though, to initiate job actions
should an unforeseen breakdown in these latest talks occur.

“We are not going to cancel the strikes altogether,” said
Travis. “We’re just going to postpone job actions until the
contract is finalized.”